On this week’s LoD, Cerberus’ Team was a bit short on mapower. From initial looks, one could have almost fooled oneself that the MGs outnumbered the DEFR players this time around, sporting two full Squads under the lead of BrianSaysRelax and Toben.
The first match took place on the night version of Zavod, much to the pleasure of Casper. But not only Brightness sliders were turned to a hundred here, as the fight on the centre flags C and D proved to be one of the craziest, most hectic ones in a long time. Flags changed around constantly, with Krecks being a nuisance on Cerberus’ homeflags A and B. But it seemed equally hard to maintain control over our home flags F and E, where Bux and his DEFR squad helped out the Kronos team.
All in all it was a really close fight, stretching for more than 35 minutes, so I was quite surprised to find that in the end the ticket margin was more than 200 tickets. Luckily this week, this margin was in favour of Kronos, giving a much needed boost to morale.

Game 2: Sunken Dragon (v)

The watery Metropolitan battleground seems to be a favourite among the vehicle maps, at least for the Game coordinators. Probably due to the fact that vehicles are quite limited, with both teams only getting one APC and one Scout Heli. Cooperation between the vehicle and infantry squads are therefore crucial. Spotting that enemy APC across the map gives the own Fighting vehicle a good impression over its possible area of influence.
Kronos team was deploying from the US side, aka the side with A and B. Initially, Both Brians and Tobens squad were supposed to be paradropped into the C and D area, but this advanced was stopped by the countering Scout Heli. Toben and his squad managed to get on the shore in front of D, in a less than optimal position. It was our task at that moment to get onto C and clear a path for the incoming APC, as well as keep their APC from pushing. Luckily, we managed to achieve that objective, getting the bleed on for Kronos side.
The fighting hotspots shifted to A and D, while Tobens squad, together with Kreck’s APC, tried to fend of the enemy IFV, which at one point seemed almost impossible, as it had a constant crew of 2 repairmen keeping it out of trouble. Only by a desperate Kamikaze act by Duke could the LAV menace be tamed.
In the end, holding B and C constantly proved to be a secure hold over the ticket bleed, bringing the game home by exactly 333 tickets.

Game 3: Hainan Resort (i)

The last game of the evening made it rather apparent that we had developed another balancing problem. This time though, Kronos was the beneficiary. As mentioned, a lot of the regular DEFR players were missing on this Friday evening, probably enjoying the summer sun with a cold beer or two.
The Cerberus side was therefore not the well oiled machine that we are used to see. It goes to show how important it is to know the people you play with. But I am sure next week we will see Cerberus back in full force, with nice and tight games for both sides. Because thats when LoD is the most fun.
Anyway, there is not much to say about Hainan. Kronos managed to get the initial 3 flag hold, repelled a counter-offensive towards B and then managed to get a squad into E, completely disrupting Cerberus’ offensive movements. The game went in Kronos favour, with 500 tickets gained.

It was really nice to see so many of us showing up. I hope you guys had fun! I sure did. Thanks, and see you next week!

We got wet again! Taking a swim to the main island, Kronos took a hold of the southern islands with F+G. The advance on E was halted by faster Cerberus forces. MedicNL’s squad took hold of C, but had their hands full there as well.
In an attempt to get a hold of the game, Kronos switched around, taking a hold of A and B, while Jackson and his squad secured the south. This proved to be too unstable to hold, as Cerberus had to push only one side to gain the advantage. So Kronos went back to the initial starting position, all of the sudden finding great success. At one point, all that remained to Cerberus was A and B.

But Kronos was not able to contain them long enough to achieve the comeback. The game was lost by 200-ish tickets.

Game 2: Langcang Damn (v)

So there are two things I have learned on this map. One, C is really really important on this map. Having the island protects your back flag and gets you to the enemies back flag really quickly. Also, you can lase everything from there, so it also helps with the vehicle domination. Two, sometimes you can do your best, but it just is not good enough. “That’s not a flaw, that is life” as my favourite Earl-Gray sipping Frenchman will say.
Anyway, what Kronos did here was assign vehicles freely across the board. Every squad got a vehicle. I think next time it is better to keep all vehicles of one kind (aka Armor, and Air) in one squad). Maybe give one APC to each infantry squad. In the end, this was fairly one sided, with roughly 500 tickets in the hands of Cerberus.

Game 3: Hangar 21 (i)

In its second coming to this season of LoD, the fight took us to the snowy heights of the Russian Weapons development facility. The plan about this map seems easy in theory when you start as the Russians: Lock down the access to A and B, Get D and C and be happy about life. But, as last time, this does not really seem to work. Cerberus yet again managed to infest the Hangar with their presence, locking 2 Kronos squads down in a fight in and around the Titan.
The fight outside was a stalemate as well, but more often then not, Cerberus managed to get short periods of ticket bleed in, slowly gaining some headspace over Kronos.
Personally, my squad fought a valiant fight on F for most of the game. New Recruit Pinking managed to keep his suicidal SL alive a lot of times; overall, the revive game was good, keeping us on the flag for long periods of time. But in the end, the game was still lost by 168 tickets.

So maybe it is time to address the elephant in the room here: Team Balancing. Last week was good, this week not so much. And in general, it seems unbalanced too much in favour of Cerberus, which has lead to the fact that quite some regular players stopped showing up.
This has been noted by Bux and we will start mixing the teams some more. Some Cerberus peeps might move over to Kronos, some Kronos peeps might have to move over to Cerberus. So I hope in the future we will have close games again, like the ones we had last week.
Anyway, I still had a ton of fun in these matches. The fight on F on Hangar was fantastic, and the comeback we almost had on OP Mortar would have been epic. But alas, I will have to wait until next week for more competitive BF goodness. Hope to see you then!

Kicking the evening off on my personal favourite map, things promised to be very entertaining. MedicNL’s squad was tasked with keeping the back cap’s (A+B) secure, while Gluck55 and his compatriots put some pressure on the enemies backyard (F). Buxs’ squad and Toben’s monkeys deployed to the center, rotating around the CDE combination. It was quite the pleasant surprise when we found substantial success there. We put our minds to capping a flag and it often worked.
I find it important to disallow them the respawn on the flag. It should always be the first order of business to neutralize a flag before sticking one’s neck out. Otherwise enemies will just respawn within 15 secs, and all work will be for nothing.
Anyway, flags changes possession constantly, but in the end, Kronos, just barely, managed to come out on top, winning by 50-ish tickets.

Game 2: Flood Zone (v)

This was a tough one, as the monkeys were thrown into the meatgrinder of B and C over and over again, while the rest of the team took hold over the A+D+E combination. As is tradition on this map, holding A is a challenge. The game was non the less a really good and close one, being lost by 50-ish tickets this time around.

Game 3: Outbreak (i)

Returning to the Jungles of Outbreak, the plan mirrored the first match: MedicNL holding A/B, Toben and Bux on C and Gluck attacking D+E. I did not see much of the map, as my squad was constantly busy on C, but I am sure MedicNL faced one hell of a fight on our back caps (Especially when Cerberus gave up on C due to sheer ‘Monkey Superiority’ *ahem*).
Anyway, this match was a bit one-sided, netting Kronos around 240 tickets for the overall tally.